I think there’s a decent proposition you could offer to people, who either don’t want to study theory or do that much praxis (which is a bit misleading because they’re both praxis) and that is to build a strong party structure.
100 people going into their own adventures and randomly forming parties, with similar ambitions, is good. It’s additive forces.
A highly organized group of 10 cadres functioning in lockstep is excellent. It’s multiplicative forces.
Not only that, but each of the cadres can take command of the semi-organized adventurers. But the tricky part is I don’t know how to propagate this better, in our current environment. For instance, there’s a decent argument to be made how neo-liberalism erodes ones sense of self, which makes teaching alternative viewpoint really difficult. I hear a lot of talk about the problems of illiteracy, but we also have to remember the masses have been alienated more than ever. Of course it depends on the country, all of them are different, but in the “West” in the core countries of Empire the masses are very alienated and illiterate. At least from my experience, but it could be wrong too.
Maybe the material conditions simply make it impossible to bring the theory with praxis together, for now. It’s hard to imagine there to not be at least one decent group who knows how to do this, but they probably lack the means, would be my guess. Hopefully in the future that gets resolved.
Agreed, I just think we need to nurture how people relate to/ground their opinions before theory can take root properly. Currently both science and politics are treated like sophistry—it’s all a matter of argument
What I think is especially unhelpful is people who have not read enough theory to understand what they are talking about (let alone considered it in the context it was written), but they are passionate about an issue so they try to debate people using the logic of that theory and they end up just making the theory seem like nonsense because they didn’t understand it. Only in the context of debate does it make sense to argue for a theory you don’t really grasp. Debate is about winning an argument but not about what is ‘true’ or ‘right’. I would rather that person just stick to their guns on the basics of whatever the argument is over (ie. genocide is bad no exceptions). This way they stand firmly on their own feet but can also have confidence in their reasons even without a nuanced historical perspective of how things got to where they are.
Anyway I love reading and discussing theory and philosophy (including your guides) and find it extremely rich and rewarding. It should be used as fodder to help you think rather than a guidebook to inform what you should think.
What I think is especially unhelpful is people who have not read enough theory to understand what they are talking about (let alone considered it in the context it was written), but they are passionate about an issue so they try to debate people using the logic of that theory and they end up just making the theory seem like nonsense because they didn’t understand it.
This is very common, well said! And thanks for the complement. My goal is mostly to make sure people unify theory and practice, theory is a guide to action.
Neither theory nor science should be gatekept, but that doesn’t mean studying both aren’t still necessary.
I think there’s a decent proposition you could offer to people, who either don’t want to study theory or do that much praxis (which is a bit misleading because they’re both praxis) and that is to build a strong party structure.
100 people going into their own adventures and randomly forming parties, with similar ambitions, is good. It’s additive forces. A highly organized group of 10 cadres functioning in lockstep is excellent. It’s multiplicative forces.
Not only that, but each of the cadres can take command of the semi-organized adventurers. But the tricky part is I don’t know how to propagate this better, in our current environment. For instance, there’s a decent argument to be made how neo-liberalism erodes ones sense of self, which makes teaching alternative viewpoint really difficult. I hear a lot of talk about the problems of illiteracy, but we also have to remember the masses have been alienated more than ever. Of course it depends on the country, all of them are different, but in the “West” in the core countries of Empire the masses are very alienated and illiterate. At least from my experience, but it could be wrong too.
Maybe the material conditions simply make it impossible to bring the theory with praxis together, for now. It’s hard to imagine there to not be at least one decent group who knows how to do this, but they probably lack the means, would be my guess. Hopefully in the future that gets resolved.
Would be a fun experiment!
Agreed, I just think we need to nurture how people relate to/ground their opinions before theory can take root properly. Currently both science and politics are treated like sophistry—it’s all a matter of argument
What I think is especially unhelpful is people who have not read enough theory to understand what they are talking about (let alone considered it in the context it was written), but they are passionate about an issue so they try to debate people using the logic of that theory and they end up just making the theory seem like nonsense because they didn’t understand it. Only in the context of debate does it make sense to argue for a theory you don’t really grasp. Debate is about winning an argument but not about what is ‘true’ or ‘right’. I would rather that person just stick to their guns on the basics of whatever the argument is over (ie. genocide is bad no exceptions). This way they stand firmly on their own feet but can also have confidence in their reasons even without a nuanced historical perspective of how things got to where they are.
Anyway I love reading and discussing theory and philosophy (including your guides) and find it extremely rich and rewarding. It should be used as fodder to help you think rather than a guidebook to inform what you should think.
This is very common, well said! And thanks for the complement. My goal is mostly to make sure people unify theory and practice, theory is a guide to action.